Fete Accompli | Jeanette from the Block

What: An outdoor reggae street party to celebrate the opening of Jeanette’s, an East London designer store conceived by the gender illusionist James Main. Better known as Jeanette, Main was the door girl for the club Boombox, served as a muse to the designers Giles Deacon and Gareth Pugh, worked as a stylist for Dazed & Confused and i-D magazines and occasionally moonlighted as a hairdresser to Grace Jones. Jeanette’s is housed in a minimal, post-industrial space and offers a cool mix of men’s and women’s items by designers like Louise Grey, Kim Jones, Christopher Kane, James Long and Richard Nicoll. The portrait of a nude transgendered plumber called Pia adds a unique touch to the decor.

Where: Off East London’s Redchurch Street, next to the area’s burgeoning galleries, and a block away from the Shoreditch House member’s club and the art stars Tim and Sue Noble’s bunker-like urban villa.

Who: The motley crew included Arena Homme Plus editor in chief JoAnn Furniss, i-D editor Ben Reardon, Burberry’s Sylvia Farago, the music video director Kinga Burza, the stylist Kim Howells, the Architecture Foundation’s Elias Redstone, Princess Julia, Jonny Woo and the designers Gareth Pugh, Louise Goldin and Roksanda Ilincic.
Dress Code: Bernhard Wilhelm seemed to be the main inspiration, though some hipsters are still sporting Barbour’s waxed jackets. Not as much cross-dressing as you’d expect, though several biological females had their hair dyed peach or blue.
Drinks: Despite the crowd’s speculation, cocktails were not laced with PCP. The beers ran out, but the attendees were so determined to celebrate Jeanette’s launch that they bought cans of Strongbow cider from the corner shop.
Music: Dub played by Jeffrey Hinton, London’s premier gay R&B deejay.
Overheard: “I’m writing about appropriation at the moment so I’m gonna appropriate: it’s nower than now and wower than wow.” — London Times writer, deejay and P.i.X editor Hanna Hanra.

“It’s very gay isn’t it?” — New Power Studio’s Thom Murphy

“I was looking at an old copy of The Face and they called these ‘pee collectors.’” — The stylist John Colver, talking about the rims on his nineties Rockport shoes, which were banned in the UK’s rougher nightclubs, as they were favored by violent teenage criminals.